Weathercraft is Jim Woodring’s first full-length graphic novel EVER, and the first complete story of his comics work in over 5 years!  — and it features more of the hypnotically gorgeous linework and mystical iconography he's known for.

Manhog, the central figure of the story bravely perseveres thru a gauntlet of psychedelic trials and tribulations, blundering his way towards righteousness and enlightenment. Also co-starring Frank and his cast of beloved supporting characters: Frank’s Faux Pa and the diminutive, mailbox-like Pupshaw and Pushpaw. Eventually, a new and metaphysically expanded Manhog sets out for a final battle with Whim...

Weathercraft is both a fully independent story that is a great introduction to Woodring’s world, and a sublime addition to --and extension of --the Frank stories.

About the Artist...

Jim Woodring was born in Los Angeles in 1952 and enjoyed a childhood made interesting by frequent hallucinations, apparitions, disembodied voices and other psychological malfunctions. Despite the generally frightening nature of his delusions he learned to accept them as part of life and was accordingly a reasonably cheerful and good-natured lad.

After barely graduating from high school Woodring got a job as a garbage man and lived in picturesque squalor as he set about the task of capturing his inner life in words and pictures. Some of these fledgling efforts were printed in various “underground” publications of the day: Two-Bit Comics (a weekly tabloid), the Los Angeles Free Press, and an early effort at self-publishing, The Little Swimmer.

Gradually he developed a number of serviceable drawing styles and became a full-time freelance cartoonist, doing work primarily for advertising agencies and public relations companies but also working on whatever projects came his way, such as student films and other collaborative art.

In 1980 he self-published the first issue of his “illustrated autojournal”, Jim, containing comics, drawings and stories drawn from his indelible childhood experiences. Eventually Woodring landed a salaried job in an L.A. animation studio where he worked on some of the worst cartoons this degraded planet has ever seen.

Jim was published as a regular series by Fantagraphics Books starting in 1986, to critical acclaim if less than spectacular sales, and Woodring became a full-time cartoonist. Frank, a wordless surrealist series which began as an occasional feature within Jim, became his best-known work.

Woodring created a short-lived comics series for children, Tantalizing Stories, with Mark Martin. He has also worked as a freelance illustrator and comics writer, writing comics based on Aliens and Star Wars for Dark Horse Comics and adapting the film Freaks with F. Solano Lopez. Additionally, Woodring illustrated Microsoft's Comic Chat program, an IRC client which is notably employed in the creation of the daily Internet comic Jerkcity.

In recent years Woodring has also become a popular toy designer, with his strange creations sold in vending machines in Japan and available at hip comics shops in America. In 2002 Woodring moved away from comics and cartooning and began to concentrate on individual paintings, but by 2005 he was back to the publishing world with a new Frank book (The Lute String).

In December 2006, he became one of the first group of United States Artists Fellows. His work was featured prominently at the Centre National de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image in Angoulême, France, as part of the international comics festival held there in January, 2007.

Woodring received an Inkpot award at the 2008 San Diego Comic Convention, and was awarded an Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship in the fall of 2008.

Weathercraft, Jim's most recent work, features Manhog, an "unholy hybrid of human ambivalence." True to form, Weathercraft's intense surrealist art speaks for itself without any text.

>>>--->See all the Weathercraft art now!